Well well well, lookie here. A guest post! Today we’ll be reading Rebecca Chua’s (Chinese name: 蔡幸彤) translation of an essay from her textbook. The post is about the rewards of honesty. I remember my own textbook being full of these types of essays, so thank you, Rebecca, for the traditional read.

Rebecca has this to say about the post: This story talks about a school-going child’s problems of getting his parents to sign his papers. It also talks about being honest, and that life’s exam papers matter the most. This essay was from my tutoring centre’s teaching materials. This was done with help. Thank you for those who helped me!

(And the same in Chinese:) 这个故事是讲述华文考试卷要签名所遇到的困难。这个故事教我们要诚实，也教我们，虽然考卷的真正分数低，但人生的考卷上有高分才是最重要的。

One of the interesting things about this post is the punctuation. In Chinese, they use a six-dot ellipses …… where we only use… three. (u c wat i did thar?). We also learn a little culture here: it’s worth noting that in most Chinese highschools, parents actually have to sign your test results to prove you showed it to them. We also see that Rebecca’s book spells “A+” as “A*”.

Carrying a heavy load on my back, holding the exam papers that were just handed back to us, I wondered how I could make my father sign this paper……

The exam, which was held just two days before, was handed back to us. I got an A+, a high score of 97 points! All the students in my class were envious of me, and I got the praise of my teacher. But when we were asked to do corrections, I found myself dropping all the way from heaven to hell. I actually forgot to do a whole page of questions, and had to be deducted of ten marks! But my teacher hadn’t discovered yet, and I wasn’t sure if I had to say it to her. I was in two minds. One said, “Don’t tell her, otherwise you would lose face and lose your father’s present!” The other said, “No, you should be honest, just tell her!” So, I said, “I missed these questions, the actual points should be 87!” When she helped me change my score, I heaved a sigh of relief.

When I was going home, I wished I had not said all that. Now, not only was I going to lose my father’s present, but I was also going to be scolded by him. At night, when I passed my paper to him, he said,”Why were you so careless? Why did you miss out a whole page of questions?” Usually, when he asks me all these questions, I call him a “dad of ten-thousand questions”. But now, I daren’t, because he seems so angry that he might hit me. Suddenly, when he saw that my 97 points became 87 points, he asked me,”What happened?” I told him the truth, and lowered my head, ready to continue being scolded.

My father silenced for a while. Then he suddenly said, “No, darling, even though you results aren’t satisfactory, in life’s exam, you have gotten a high score. I am proud of you! You have done it right……” after saying that he signed his name.

The next morning, carrying my schoolbag, with light steps, I was feeling happy. Welcoming the rising sun, I walked towards my school with confidence……

19 comments to "Guest Post by Rebecca Chua: The difference between life’s exam and exam papers"

In the first paragraph, in the sentence “…还失去爸爸要給我的礼物”, the “给” is a traditional character. Is there a reason for this, or is it a typo? I’m curious because this isn’t the first time I’ve seen a random traditional character in simplified text (usually it’s 著 instead of 着).

Hi,, in this sentence , 爸爸为你骄傲， I heard that 骄傲 refers only to be proud of oneself and usually in negative way, too pride, conceited, so probably in this context being pride of one’s child behaviour the other word should be applied. what do you think?

A lesson for life, life’s exams are bigger and a lot longer but there still alike in some ways. Always look at the bright side never go undernethe, always look up. ( at least it wasn’t close to an F, C, or D so he’s good right ) always be honest, anyways thanks a lot once again. ^…^.

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